


All the Snakes of the Forest

by nimmieamee



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017)
Genre: F/F, F/M, M/M, cursed amulets, ramshackle biker bars, terrifying dolls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-04
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-10-14 20:48:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10544112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nimmieamee/pseuds/nimmieamee
Summary: "When Hepzibah Blossom fled the witch trials of Salem to come to Riverdale gravid with child, did not the very snakes of the forest provide for her and her heirs?"Or Snow White, Rose Red, and the 37 Repeat Offenders.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be Jossed in 2 days but I don't care.

"Even the coffins," Penelope said, "are made on the estate."

She looked at Polly and smiled tightly.

"That's so nice," Polly said. "Locally-sourced coffins."

"You have to pick your trees soon, Polly," Clifford put in. "I mean the ones you'll be buried in."

"Yes, I understood what you mean," Polly said.

"Cheryl's is this magnificent grove of Japanese maples," Penelope said. "Clifford and I both favor the Norway maples, of course. And Jason--"

They paused in their tour of the estate to survey a long row of stumps. Only Clifford was unaffected by the sight. Nana began to moan. Penelope took out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes. Cheryl looked beautifully anguished, fluttered down into place next to one of the stumps, and began to stroke it lovingly.

"Jason was a traditionalist," Penelope said, her voice heavy. "At his coffin-wood-choosing ceremony, when he was four years old, he already knew he wanted to be buried in sugar maple. And his dream came true."

Her voice cracked and she began to sob into her handkerchief. Cheryl began to sob into her stump. Nana's moans grew loader. The weight of their grief was so enormous that for a moment Polly almost joined them in solidarity, but then a frisson of irritation broke through her own sorrow.

"No," Polly said. "No, I'm pretty sure Jason's dream was to live and marry me, not get murdered just so that he could be buried inside his favorite tree."

-

Jason had been extremely into nature, though. 

Kind, funny, athletic, and extremely into nature.

"I have our answer," he'd told her excitedly one day. "We'll run away! To a green, verdant place. To a farm!"

And Polly had said, "Wait, you know how to farm?"

And Jason had said, a little bit ominously, "No, but I'm a Blossom."

Polly had concluded that maybe he was planning to use his extreme wealth and genetically predetermined dash of sociopathy to set up some kind of scheme involving underpaid day laborers. So she had asked Betty to research the conditions of the modern migrant farmer, and Betty had generously prepared a forty-three page paper that Polly had made Jason read in full.

"So, you see, we are _not_ engaging in unfair working practices," Polly had finished, when he was done.

Jason had looked stumped.

"Well, gosh, then I guess I'd better ask Nana what to do," he'd said. "Maybe she can teach me how to curse the land into growing. Nana has Chippewa blood, you know."

Nana, when Polly had met her, had looked at them both severely.

"The land will provide without curses, child," she told Jason. "For she carries the blood of the Blossoms now. And when Hepzibah Blossom fled the witch trials of Salem to come to Riverdale, gravid with child, did not the very snakes of the forest provide for her and her two heirs?"

"Yes," Jason said dutifully. "But she had the cursed family amulet on her, Nana. That must have helped."

"Cursed family amulet?" Polly said.

"An item of greatest power," Nana had said, shuddering and drawing her shawl around her. "Clifford's hidden secret. Oh, but child, you cannot have the amulet from your father simply because you will it. The amulet chooses the Blossom it will serve."

"What?" Polly had said. "That can't be right."

"No, it is," Jason had said very seriously. "Nana would know about cursed amulets. She has swami blood."

-

For breakfast, there was usually a sumptuous feast of maple-cured ham, and for lunch there was usually a sumptuous feast of maple-cured ham, and for dinner, usually another sumptuous feast of maple-cured ham.

"Oh goody," said Veronica Lodge, when Polly and Cheryl had invited her and Betty and their mothers over for the weekend. "Maple ham."

She ate it very deliberately, like a princess at a state dinner. Betty moved hers around her plate a few times. Polly's mother didn't even look at the ham, just drank a third glass of wine. Veronica's mother was maybe on her fourth or fifth.

"You know," Polly said slowly. "I think the baby would maybe like something a little less hammy."

"Oh, for dinner we're having maple shrimp," Cheryl said reassuringly.

"Oh hooray," said Polly.

"You must be craving maple. Blossom children always hunger for maple in the womb," Clifford put in. "Tell me, Polly. Do you know the town's history? Why we eat the maple? Why we _prize_ the maple?" 

"Blood feud. Sweetwater river. Maple money," Veronica recited. 

Clifford looked cheated, but all three of the Cooper women, in unison, mouthed _thank you_.

Veronica nodded, like this was her due. 

-

The Blossom nursery was as large and magnificent as the town hall. It had black wallpaper designed to look like maple wood, and an array of blank-eyed porcelain dolls covered nearly every square inch of the room.

"This was my favorite," Cheryl gushed, holding up a small porcelain Cheryl. "And this was Jason's favorite."

A small porcelain Jason. Its head was nearly ripped in two. Polly gave a shriek.

"I don't know how that happened," Cheryl said sadly. "I came in here about a week after Jay-Jay disappeared, and it was just like that."

"About a week?" Polly said. 

She noticed that one of the dolls had pins in it.

"Who's this?" she said, pointing at it.

"Oh, that's great-uncle Jasper," Cheryl said. "He was stabbed ninety-five times by a leper."

"And this one?" Polly said, pointing at one that was burned.

"Aunt Veruca, who died in a fire at the insane asylum."

"And this one?" 

This doll seemed to have been run over by something.

"Grandmother Arbuthnot Blossom," Cheryl said, "A brilliant painter. Her best work hangs above your bed."

"The giant splotchy gray thing that looks like one thousand eyes that follow you across the room?" Polly said.

"She was _very_ disturbed, Grandmother Arbuthnot Blossom," Cheryl said, "As soon as she finished painting that, she went out and threw herself in front of a train."

-

"We should have a doll made for you, Polly," Clifford said at dinner that night. 

"Ooooh," Polly said. "That's so kind. But I'll pass."

"Are you sure?" Penelope said, sounding concerned. "They're very nice dolls. Nana makes them now. She has extraordinary doll-making ability. It's her Midwestern blood."

-

Every night, at around three in the morning, something roamed the halls of Thornhill. It always wailed desperately until it woke Polly up.

At first she assumed it was one of the Thornhill ghosts. Jason had had a million amusing stories of the Thornhill ghosts trying to push him out of trees and into ravines and appearing over his bedside with knives before Nana wheeled in to chase them away (Nana had the blood of Nepalese ghost-hunters). 

But one night Polly was so fed up with it that she decided to investigate, and that was how she discovered that the ghosts were Cheryl. 

Cheryl was by nature a gothic creature, the kind of girl who was violently shaken by her own mother at least four times per week, who endured long spells of confinement in the Blossom rose greenhouse every time she ticked her father off (which was often), and whose sole brother had recently been murdered. So it made some sense that she would be prone to waking at odd hours and wandering the halls like a beautiful, tragic ghost. 

Still, Polly felt entirely within her rights to say, "Cheryl? Cheryl."

"Oh, Polly," Cheryl said, fluttering around to face her, extending her long white arms in a plea or an anguished prayer of some kind.

"It's three in the morning," Polly hissed. "Shut up."

-

"This is getting ridiculous," Alice said, the next weekend she came over. "You have to come home! You can't stay in this moldering, evil den of sin, Polly!"

She wasn't wrong. But she had locked Polly up with the Sisters of Quiet Mercy for three months. So, all things considered, Polly didn't feel at all bad when she said, "You know, mother, I think I can stay, actually."

-

It was harder to face Betty's disappointment, because Betty had never let her down. 

"I will come home at some point," Polly said, when all the girls were ensconced in the magnificent maple-paneled Blossom library. Cheryl was fluttering around Veronica, who was looking around at the portraits of various dead Blossoms and asking about their lives, and then looking rather resigned when Cheryl instead described their incredibly macabre deaths.

Polly and Betty were supposed to be picking out nursery colors to replace the awful wallpaper. But it wasn't quite going as planned.

"At some point?" Betty said. It was horrible to hear her say it because Betty was Polly's sunshiney younger sister, and now there wasn't even a single hint of sunshine in her voice. And it made Polly angry. Not angry at Betty, really, but angry at her mother and the Blossoms. They hadn't just hurt Jason and banished Polly. Their schemes had leaked over into Betty's life too, and that was near-unforgivable.

"How are things with Jughead?" Polly said, changing the subject in the hopes that it would improve Betty's mood. "Did everything work out with his father?"

Archie Andrews had been yelling about that at the baby shower, and it had made Betty look spooked. Polly's job, as Betty's older sister, was to make sure Betty never had to look like that for long.

"Polly," Betty said. "You heard, right?"

"His father's a Serpent," Polly said, picking at the baby blanket Nana had just finished knitting (she was apparently a champion knitter thanks to her Australian blood). "I know. But, Betty, I'm not going to hold that against him. That would be like mom and dad holding Jason's Blossomness against Jason, or the Blossoms holding my Cooperness against me."

Betty broke into a smile then, which was a relief. That was much more like Betty.

-

Strangely, Veronica was a source of zen-like calm when it came to facing the Blossoms. If Cheryl hadn't kept on inviting her over, Polly would have invited her herself.

"What's in here?" Veronica said one afternoon, stopping in front of a door emblazoned with thorns and maple leaves.

"Family gun room," Polly reported.

"And behind this door?"

"Venomous plant greenhouse," Polly said. 

"And this door?" 

"Carnivorous plant greenhouse."

"Oh my god," Veronica said. "They've got Audrey II, don't they, girl? Don't tell me. Don't tell me. I don't want to know. God, _so_ Blossom."

Here Polly felt that she had to defend Jason's family. If only because soon they would be her child's family, too.

"They're not all bad," she said. "Did you know -- they don't just have maple land? They have a big old corn field just beyond the town limits, and at the start of every summer they host a Behind the Cornstalks Youth Party."

Veronica took her hand.

"Polly?" she said calmly.

"Yes?"

"That's the plot of _Children of the Corn_."

\- 

Really, though, it was all going well until the night Clifford tried to kill her.

Specifically, tried to smother her with a pillow while she slept. Unfortunately for Clifford, it had been yet another sleepless night for Cheryl. The wailing had woken Polly up again and so Polly had been lying awake in the dark for an hour, willing sleep to return.

Sleep didn't return, but the old Blossom sociopathy did.

"This is for the maple," Clifford was hissing, as he tried to force the pillow onto Polly's face. "For the maple!"

Polly had endured three months in a pregnant girl prison, jumped through a glass window, run through thirty miles of snowy wood, and spent a night in a freezing attic. She was not going to be undone by a pillow. She punched Clifford in the jaw. He reeled back, cursing. Polly jumped out of bed, managed to get her feet in her slippers, and ran out to the hall.

Maybe it was the half-Blossom baby she carried, but right then she thought like a Blossom. 

Now a Cooper, a Cooper would have done the sensible thing and run out of the house into the snow, taking their chances with the elements and trusting that, if they ever found the law, the law would recognize that they were nice middle class people with good teeth and so vindicate them. 

But that would not have saved Polly here, since running out of the house would only leave her on the Blossom estate, and Clifford knew that better than she did. Plus, Clifford owned the local sheriff. So instead Polly ran to the nursery and rooted through the dolls until she found Clifford's. By then Clifford was gaining on her, so she darted through a side door and out into another hall, then through the billiards room, then down the spiral staircase, then across the ballroom to the main stair. At the high landing, she tossed the Clifford doll off. Then she ran down the stair.

Clifford, just behind her, tripped, cursed, and fell over the landing just like his doll had. 

Polly escaped into the snow. At the bend of the driveway, something glittered in the hollows of a very old maple tree. Polly picked it up. Then she heard footsteps behind her. Terrified, thinking it was Clifford, she whirled around. 

It wasn't Clifford. It was Cheryl, in a scanty red silk dressing gown.

"Oh, Polly," she breathed out. "You found it. It called to you."

"What?" Polly said.

She looked down at the thing in her hands.

"The cursed family amulet," Cheryl said breathlessly. "Oh, Polly, now we can go _anywhere_ we want."

-

They could not actually go anywhere, though, because they didn't know if Clifford was dead or alive. If he was dead then that was manslaughter ("Polly, you're too valuably heavy with Jay-Jay's children to go to prison," Cheryl murmured) and if he was alive, he had control of Sheriff Keller, so that wasn't much better.

Cheryl, though, had blind faith in the amulet. 

"Nana always said that if it chose us, we only had to follow where it glinted," Cheryl said. "Nana would know. She has Polish-Canadian blood. So just follow the lights it leaves on the snow."

They did this. They did this all night. By early morning, the amulet had led them to the wrong side of the tracks, to a desolate spot where the only place in sight that might have a telephone or a place to sit or a drink of water was a squalid, dirty-looking bar called the White Wyrm. The inside was gloomy, the residents foul-smelling. 

One stomped down the stairs the moment they came in, looked at them, and said, "Are you kidding me? What is with you kids? Don't you know not to come around to this side of the tracks anymore?"

For Jason's sake, Polly had been willing to trust in the amulet, but now she felt her faith waver. 

"What's so great about the amulet?" Polly whispered.

"It's cursed," Cheryl said. 

"I can see that! I feel cursed!" said Polly. It occurred to her that she'd heard the name of the White Wyrm before. From Jason. When he was discussing the Serpents. And now the testy Serpent who'd come down the stair was bearing down on them.

"No," Cheryl said. "It doesn't curse the _bearer_. It curses _for_ the bearer."

"What do you kids want?" the Serpent said now. He smelled like he'd been pickled in liquor.

"Not to be accosted by an alcoholic," Polly said, with dignity.

The Serpent rolled his eyes, pulled out a flask, and took a swig.

Then he went green, his eyes rolled back in his head for a minute, and he vomited into the snake tank.

-

In the furor that followed, none of the Serpents bothered Cheryl and Polly at all. The girls didn't find a clean place to sit, so they sat on the mostly-clean billiards table and watched as the Serpents thronged around their leader, who was having a hard time keeping his liquor down.

Specifically, any time he tried to drink any, his body reacted like he'd been exposed to nerve gas. 

"What did you do to me?" he demanded, between heaving breaths.

"She cursed you," Cheryl said, sounding bored. "Obviously."

Polly did not feel bad about it, since a part of her still assumed that the Serpents had been involved in Jason's death. Only now a bigger part of her assumed _Clifford_ was responsible for Jason's death. And it seemed that she might be able to control the Serpents now.

"Cheryl," Polly said, thinking it through. "Your Nana said something once. About an ancestor of yours. Heavy with child, she was expelled from her town, but was cared for by the snakes of the forest."

"Nana's a very wise woman," Cheryl said. "Once you get past the Alzheimer's and the Swedish blood."


	2. Chapter 2

It took three curses to bind the Serpents to her service.

First, obviously, the curse that rendered their leader unable to take a drink without Polly's express permission. It turned out he really liked his drinks, so he quickly agreed to hide Polly and the baby from Clifford Blossom.

Next, a curse to replace their snake. Polly felt a little bad that the original snake, Al Pacino, had drowned in a shower of liquor-tinged vomit. So she asked the amulet to produce a new snake. It appeared curled around Cheryl's wrist and Cheryl quickly named it Veronica Lake.

"Hey, that's cute," said one of the Serpents.

"Not the time, Mustang," said their leader, who was still a little green. 

Lastly, a curse that promised swift and certain death to any Serpent who should dare betray her location or contravene her express wishes. 

"Polly," Cheryl said.

"Yes?" said Polly.

"Ask your gang-slaves to improve the wretched condition of their ramshackle biker bar," Cheryl said. "Jay-Jay's babies _can't_ live in Dogville, all surrounded by fugitives from a chain gang."

"It's temporary!" Polly said. Every last Serpent looked relieved at this news. "Anyway, they're not my slaves."

"Are you proposing to pay us?" the leader said belligerently.

"Yes," Polly decided, even though she had no money. "I will pay you in-- in--"

It took a half-second of thought.

"Moral and ethical improvement," she decided. "Direct from the teachings of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy." 

All the Serpents looked disappointed, except for their leader, who looked enraged, and Mustang, who looked hopeful.

"That might not be so bad. Sounds kind of classy," said Mustang.

"Not the time, Mustang," said the leader. 

-

Cheryl refused to leave, no matter how often Polly asked her to, and the cursed amulet did not appear to curse other Blossoms, so Polly couldn't make her leave. 

Cheryl also refused to live in the White Wyrm as long as the White Wyrm looked the way it did.

"Maybe I'll clean it up during the day," Polly said. "I have to do something while I'm hiding from your evil father."

"Snow White and the thirty-seven repeat-offenders," said Veronica, who Cheryl had invited at the earliest available opportunity and who glided into the White Wyrm like she was deliberately ignoring every single thing about it. "Alright then, girl. Whatever works for you."

"Hey, if she doesn't want to stick around, we're not complaining," said FP, the leader. He was hunched over a drink at the bar, watching the girls commandeer his pool table to discuss Polly's future living arrangements. Veronica had brought fabric swatches for the nursery, as Polly had decided to make FP's office the nursery. FP had taken offense to this, but there wasn't much he could do without Polly cutting off his ability to handle liquor. 

"Shut up or I will curse you again," Polly said now, politely.

"Curse him on principle," said Cheryl.

"Yeah, do a spell, girl," said Veronica, looking interested.

FP turned green of his own volition but didn't back down.

"No cleaning," he said. "No moral improvement. We're gang-members, for Christ's sake. We don't need a Snow White."

"Well, I will _not_ have us or the children living in this disgraceful shack without some serious redecoration," Cheryl said. "You may be so steeped in poverty that you don't know any better, but we are Blossoms of Thornhill."

"Do you have an American Excess card, Cheryl?" said Veronica.

"Of course," Cheryl said.

"Run that up, then," said Veronica. "It's total war with your parents now. Charge that until you hit the max or they cut you off. You can have them deliver all of the items to my apartment. Then the Serpents will deliver those in the dead of night to Polly."

FP said, "The Serpents will _not_ \--"

Cheryl said, "That's a brilliant idea, Veronica. You wouldn't like to join us in our clandestine criminal headquarters, would you? We could use a sensible mind, and you're already living in the meager poverty that followed your father's own arrest and hopefully lifelong imprisonment for his crimes."

FP sputtered. Veronica said, "No, girl. I'm good. I'm not at the 'run away to join a biker gang' stage yet."

-

For her first official act as the Serpents' new queen, Polly sent the underage ones back to school. 

"Joaquin can't go to school," FP said. "He's been expelled from every school in a fifty-mile radius, and he ran away from the Boys' Reformatory."

"Oh, not the Brothers of Righteous Punishment?" Polly asked, interested.

"That's the one," said Joaquin.

"I was your sister reformatory, Quiet Mercy, for almost three months," said Polly. "Were you at the August Silent Penance Mixer?"

"Yeah," said Joaquin. "I remember you, actually. Sorry if I didn't talk to you then."

"That's okay," Polly said. "Children who talked had to scrub floors until their hands bled with repentance for their sins, so."

-

Memories of the Sisters of Quiet Mercy kept her from cracking and going home to her mother, but did not make it easier to face Betty, who quickly sleuthed out her location and arrived with Jughead in tow.

"Polly, you cannot stay here," Betty insisted. "The Serpents are a gang. This is a really bad idea!"

"Bad as in potentially deadly," Jughead put in. Unlike Betty, Veronica, Cheryl, and Polly, he didn't look out of place in the White Wyrm -- possibly because his father ran the place -- but he didn't look happy either. 

"Hey, I wouldn't kill her or her kid," his father said now. "Do you really think I would do that?"

"Well, you're not exactly going to be looking out for them either, are you?" said Jughead. His mouth contorted into something that had all the shape of a grin but very definitely wasn't one. 

FP shook his head in response and took another drink. When he finished, he said, "Who says I won't be looking out for them? How would you even know?"

"You don't even look out for your own kids," Jughead said slowly. 

Betty, in a very Alice Cooper fashion, cut this argument off before it spiraled any further.

"We're very glad for your hospitality to Polly and the babies, Mr. Jones," she said, like FP was a kindly innkeeper or someone who'd offered Polly the use of a beach house. "But I think even Polly would agree that her children would maybe be better off if they didn't grow up to be Serpents, or--"

"The Serpents aren't an inheritance. They're opt-in. I never even made my kid join the Serpents," FP said, rolling his eyes. "Ask him."

Jughead didn't disagree, though he did look quietly furious and avoided everyone's attempt to catch his eye.

"He," FP said, gesturing at him, "is going to be a big-shot writer. And Polly's baby is going to be whatever the hell she wants it to be, which, last I heard, was an archaeologist."

Polly had been discussing this with Cheryl just the day before, since Cheryl seemed to feel that the only possible career path was to become a demented maple heir. She'd only thrown out archaeologist as one potential option, but she was oddly touched that FP had remembered it all the same.

"Or a dental hygienist," she said now, "or a librarian--"

FP nodded along, then turned to Jughead. "Or an astronaut! If I were such a bad person, would I encourage the next big astronaut? Stay as long as you want, Polly."

"Thank you," Polly said.

-

On Sundays, everyone abstained from drinking (except for FP, and drugs were still allowed as long as they happened in the back shed) and Polly led them all in prayer and song. Mustang proved to have an excellent voice and a fondness for 'Hosanna in the Highest.'

Midway through this, Hermione Lodge and Fred Andrews walked in.

"You," Hermione said in a loud voice, pointing at FP. "Outside. Now."

"And miss 'Crown Him With Many Crowns'?" FP said. "No way. What are you two doing here?"

"What are you doing hiding a pregnant teenager?" Fred Andrews said. "Hi, Polly."

Polly waved at him. 

"We're never going back to society!" Cheryl said, from her place in the front row. She looked like a luminous star, all in white (the better to praise Jason's memory), sandwiched between Veronica, all in black (the better to hide any gross weird stains picked up at the White Wyrm), and Kevin Keller (it didn't matter what he wore, because FP liked to have him around regardless in case they needed to take a hostage to ward off Sheriff Keller).

" _Kids_ ," Hermione said.

"How am I supposed to let you work for me when you're hosting the town fugitive?" Fred said.

"Okay, first of all, you are not letting me work for you," FP said. "You're desperate, and you're lucky Mustang is so good with a hammer. Second of all, are you really gonna fire me? And leave us with no legal way to support Polly and the baby?"

Many of the Serpents broke off mid-song here just to boo Fred Andrews for this.

"No, but Cheryl hasn't been to school in two weeks, and I have to tell somebody you're hiding Alice Cooper's daughter!" Fred said. "I can't be an accomplice!"

"Oh, great," said FP. "Rat me out. You were always good at that. And then what happens? Polly goes to jail for throwing Clifford Blossom down the stairs?"

Polly was leading the song, so she couldn't break off and explain that she hadn't actually thrown Clifford, that she'd heard Clifford was alive anyway so who cared, and that actually the stair thing had happened through occult means. So Cheryl began to sob and say, "Polly's too precious to send to old Alcatraz!" and Kevin said, "Alcatraz is...not a thing anymore," and Joaquin said, "Hey, jail's not so bad," and Veronica turned around and glared at her mother and hissed, "You cannot let Polly go to jail, mom!"

"Okay, Ronnie, here's my problem," Hermione said. "Because of past precedent, and because you and Cheryl sent forty-three orders of furniture, clothes, paint, and baby toys to my address, everyone thinks I'm hiding Polly. Which is not a good position for me to be in. Do you know what could happen if your father found out?"

FP polished off his drink and held up a hand.

"Okay, I have something that could take care of Hiram."

-

"I was following Jughead around the way I do--" FP said.

"What?" said Fred.

"He's my son; not your son," FP said blithely. "Anyway, there I was, following Jughead around the way I do, and he and Betty found the car. Jason's car. And I was thinking: okay, what if people think they did the murder?"

"They'd have to run away to a farm," Polly said, dismayed at the very prospect. 

"What?" said Hermione.

"Exactly," said FP. "No kid of mine is going to be a farmer, okay? So I torched the car to hide their fingerprints--"

"Didn't do a great job on that," muttered Fred.

"--and I took the stuff that was inside. 'Cause the drugs were mine anyway, and then the rest of it looked useful."

Here Joaquin upended the contents of a duffel bag onto the pool table. Polly gasped. Tears came to her eyes, and the baby kicked as though it could feel her upset. FP put a fatherly hand on her shoulder to steady her.

"Easy," he said. "I was afraid this would happen. Didn't want to frighten you. Here, though--" now he plucked something from Jason's possessions. "I think this ring is yours."

"How does this help us ward off Hiram?" Hermione said.

"Are you kidding me?" said FP. "Anybody messes with us, we can use Jason's stuff to frame them."

"I don't think I should be here for this conversation," Kevin decided.

"You're the accomplice now," said Joaquin, sounding thrilled. "Maybe _we_ could run away to a farm." 

"Oooh," Kevin said. "No."

Joaquin looked crushed, which made Polly feel for him because, as a widow cheated of her own true love, she supported Joaquin's intense if somewhat misguided love for Kevin.

"I don't think your guardian would want you running away to a farm," she said, jerking her chin at FP.

"Oh, I don't care if Joaquin does it," said FP.

"Can't anyone use this stuff to frame you?" Veronica said now. "Like, if they find out you guys have it?" 

FP looked stumped by this.

-

Polly didn't want the Serpents framed, since they were the kindest gang she had ever met -- truly the kinds of reprobates the Holy Savior would have loved to a chance to reform -- but she didn't want to burn Jason's jacket or possessions, either. Jason's jacket was essentially Jason, a true memory of her truest love. Sure, she could give her child an heirloom ring and a cursed amulet and a long and sordid history of Blossom family insanity to remember its father by. But she _also_ wanted to be able to someday give it Jason's jacket.

"Plus, that would be destroying evidence," Kevin said. "So. You know."

"I think Mr. Andrews should take it," Polly decided. "He's upstanding. No one would ever want to frame him."

"Yeah," Fred said uneasily. "Thanks, Polly. But I think I'll pass on keeping a dead boy's jacket. You kids need to go to the police."

"Oh no," Polly said, fingering her amulet. "You're taking it, and nobody's telling the police anything until we find Jason's killer and plant the evidence on _them_."

Fred couldn't resist the compulsion of the amulet. He took the jacket.

FP, oddly, didn't seem to like this. He knocked on the door of Cheryl and Polly's room that night. Cheryl answered. 

"Cheryl," FP said. Then he averted his eyes, because Cheryl was in full makeup, heels, a very dashing snake-choker (made of Veronica Lake, curled lovingly around her throat), and a single square foot of red silk dressing gown. 

"That's a lovely night gown," FP said, after an awkward few seconds. "Do you need a sweater? I could have Mustang get you a sweater." 

"Please," Cheryl said. "I was planning to wake up tonight and walk the length of the roof while thinking about Jason. You remember Jason, right? My murdered brother whose untimely death you were probably intimately involved with, thus leading to your lifetime of penance as Polly's worthless head slave--"

"I didn't kill him!" FP said, annoyed. "And I'm not a slave. I'm under a curse, that's all. Speaking of, Polly, you didn't curse Fred to make him take the jacket, did you?"

"Why do you ask?" Polly said, with dignity.

FP walked carefully around Cheryl and sat down on the cozy canopy bed Veronica had selected for Polly. Because the entire room was now done up in pink princess canopies and elaborate tuffets and a great quantity of pastel paint, he looked like a drunk beetle trapped inside an easter egg. He squinted around at the new digs uneasily.

"Fred," he said, after a few seconds. "Is a good guy. A mostly good guy. He's not a criminal, he's looking after my kid--"

"Get to the point, Banal Capone," Cheryl said.

"He's my friend," FP said. "Or he was. It's one thing to curse the Serpents, okay, but this is like cursing Joaquin versus cursing Jughead. One of those things is fine. The other is off-limits."

"Oh," Polly said, realizing what the problem was. "You love him."

"What?" FP said. "No!"

"You do," Polly insisted, because she knew star-crossed love when she saw it. "Did your parents keep you apart?"

"No," FP said, like she was proposing something ridiculous. "Well, his parents did, a little. Apparently a guy with--" here he broke off and made air quotes "--'three juvenile convictions' who --" more air quotes "--'repeated senior year twice' and 'made you found that really horrible band' wasn't as good a use of his time as Mary Malloy or Hermione Herrera."

"You have three convictions?" Cheryl said.

"I have eleven convictions," FP said. "But back then? Only three. And the first three don't count. Everybody knows that."

Maybe it was the hormones, but Polly felt tears pricking at her eyes. It seemed that everywhere she looked, there was another couple kept apart or nearly kept apart by the social strictures of Riverdale. Polly and Jason. Betty and Jughead. Joaquin and Kevin. Even FP and Fred.

"Why can't this town let anyone love?" she demanded, bursting into tears and getting those tears all over FP's jacket. 

"Look what you did," Cheryl said, brandishing Veronica Lake in FP's face.

"Cheryl, put Veronica Lake back in her tank," FP said. "You know the guys love Veronica Lake."

"No," said Cheryl.

"We have to stop the evil at the heart of this town," Polly said. "We have to find Jason's killer, frame them, and then -- then get the town to accept that denying love only leads to criminality, sin, and murder!"

"Sure," FP said. "Whatever you want, Polly. It'll be nice to have some real gang work again."


	3. Chapter 3

"Clifford did it," Jughead said, the next time he and Betty came over.

FP looked unhappy.

"Hey, you didn't need to sleuth this out, you know," he said. "I could have put guys on it."

"Oh, that's a great idea," said Jughead. "Jason's old crack dealers investigating Jason's murder. That's not a conflict of interest or anything."

"You should be focusing on school," FP insisted.

"The important thing," Betty said, holding up a hand, "is that after Clifford attacked Polly, Jughead and I decided to investigate him. Using legal means. And it turns out that Clifford has connections with a Greendale gang--"

"The Golems," FP said. "No, the Gremlins? It's the Gremlins, isn't it--"

"It's the Greendale Grippers," said Jughead impatiently, "and apparently Clifford hired them to hold Jason captive and rough him up a little because Jason had some family heirloom he wanted--"

Polly looked at Cheryl. Cheryl looked at Polly. 

"That fool," Cheryl whispered. "The amulet chooses the Blossom, and it must have left Father for Jason and made Father spiral into rage-fueled insanity!"

"--and then something went wrong and they killed him by accident," Jughead finished. "Wait, what amulet?"

"Nothing," Polly said hurriedly, because the existence of an evil occult Blossom family heirloom would only upset Betty. "How did you two find out all of this?"

Now Jughead and Betty looked cagey.

"Research," Jughead said.

"And we may have questioned a Greendale Gripper," said Betty. "There was a black wig involved. Don't ask."

"Oh, I know about the wig," Cheryl said. "Everybody knows about the wig. I _tweeted_ about the wig. God, you two. I should tweet about you right now. Hashtag SidandNancy."

"Hey!" said Polly, Betty, Jughead, and FP.

"Please," Cheryl said, rolling her eyes. "Sid Vicious and Nancy _Drew_."

Everyone calmed down. 

"Hey," FP said, smiling. He ruffled Jughead's hair. "You are a Nancy Drew, aren't you, Jug?"

-

But knowing for certain that Clifford was the killer didn't exactly fix all of Polly's problems. She still had a mother who had thrown her away, a father who had tried to take control of her very body, Clifford's sworn enmity, and an accomplice who was now listed as missing in the newspapers (specifically, listed as 'ANOTHER BLOSSOM MURDERED, PROBABLY, NOT THAT WE'LL MISS THEM,' because Polly's mother was on the outs with the Blossoms again).

And then, on top of all this, there was the whirlwind business of just preparing for the baby. The Serpents stole pre-natal supplements for her, and blackmailed the best ob/gyn in town to make sure that Polly got in enough ultrasounds and pre-natal screenings. One of Mustang's ex-girlfriends was, fortuitously, a doula, and a former gang member that had gone straight had actually become a Lamaze Ceritifed Childbirth Educator, so they both agreed to give Polly and the Serpents weekly coaching on the trials of labor and childbirth. 

There was even a second baby shower to plan, since the Serpents had missed the first one. Joaquin carved her a cradle, using wood-carving skills he'd acquired at the Brothers of Righteous Punishment. FP poured out some of his alcohol in Jason's honor. Mustang wheeled in an enormous cake that he and Cheryl had made together.

Cheryl said, "Mother wanted to make you one one of these, but never got the chance to. Of course, she would have filled hers with boring blue candy to show you what the Blossoms traditionally expect in an heir, but Mustang and I took a different tack."

Cheryl had been formally inducted into the Serpents a week previous, so she was now allowed to carry the ceremonial Serpent switchblade. She pulled this out of her handbag now and handed it to Polly. Polly, shrugging, used it to cut the cake. Rose pastilles and gummy worms poured out.

"I'm having a girl and some worms?" Polly said.

"The rose pastilles don't stand for a girl, but for the blood of the Blossoms," Cheryl explained.

"And those are _Serpents_ ," put in Mustang.

"Only if they want to be," said FP dangerously. 

"Of course," said Mustang, "we can't impose a professional destiny on these children any more than we can attempt to dictate their gender to them."

"Aw," said Polly, genuinely touched.

Cheryl beamed at her. "Who cares what the gender is?" she said. "We need not quibble over that when the babies will clearly require us to both fear and adore them as Jay-Jay's."

Polly felt tears pricking at her eyes. She blinked them away.

"Thank you," she told Cheryl and the Serpents. "For -- for welcoming my children. And caring for them. And agreeing to help me frame a man and destroy his life in payback for the murder of my true love."

"Anytime," FP said, toasting to her with his flask.

-

Surprisingly, though, not everyone was in favor of framing Clifford.

"If you know he did the crime, then you don't have to frame him for it!" Kevin insisted. "Seriously. Come on, guys. Anybody agree?"

Betty, Cheryl, Jughead, Joaquin, and Veronica -- all sitting on the pastel pink carpet around Polly's bed -- all avoided his gaze. Polly did not.

"Your father has always been in Clifford Blossom's pocket," she said. "I could have trusted him to arrest the killer if it was anybody but Clifford--"

"Or trusted him to find somebody from the wrong side of the tracks to blame," Jughead muttered. Joaquin gave a low whistle of agreement.

"--but now that we know Clifford did it, we'll have to make his takedown so incontrovertible and so public that even your father will have to arrest him."

"And so that any jury will convict," Betty put in. "I mean, no offense, Cheryl, but I'm pretty sure that even if he gets caught your father will just buy off the jury."

"None taken," Cheryl said. "For my part, I want my forebear to hang from Tyburn gallows, his rotting, windblown corpse a testament to the evil he unleashed upon my brother."

"People don't do public hangings anymore, Cheryl," said Veronica. "But, for the record, I'm sorry this happened to you."

Cheryl grabbed Veronica's hand and then, after a single loud sob, buried her face in Veronica's breasts. Veronica patted her hair. Polly mentally made a note to add another pair of starcrossed lovebirds to her list of Romeo and Juliet Teens and/or Bikers that she had personally sworn to protect.

"If only my father were just an immoral, greed-driven swindler like yours, Veronica," Cheryl sobbed now.

"Well, I'm sure he's that, too," Jughead said, and got a dirty look from Veronica for his troubles.

"Okay, but back to the matter at hand, we don't need to frame anybody," said Kevin. "How would we even manage it?"

There was a terrifying moan and the door creaked open. Most of the people in the room jumped, but Polly didn't, because she'd spent enough time at Thornhill to know just who entered rooms like that.

"Oh, hi Nana," said Cheryl, lifting her head from Veronica's bosom.

"Child," Nana said, holding a withered hand out to Polly. Polly got up and wheeled her into the room properly.

"How did she get up the stairs?" Kevin demanded.

Nana didn't answer. Instead she looked at the various teenagers ringed around her wheelchair. Joaquin crossed himself.

"Children," she said. "Listen to Nana, and listen well. When Hepzibah Blossom lived among the snakes of the forest, her old tormentors, Miles Standish and John Smith, came hunting for her."

"That sounds...not historically right," Betty said.

"Shhh," said Cheryl.

"Do you know what Hepzibah did then, child?" said Nana, focusing now on Polly.

"Cursed them?" Polly said. "But the -- the cursing thing -- it doesn't work on Blossoms."

"Cursing thing?" Jughead said.

"What need had she of curses when she had the very snakes of the forest?" Nana said, waving Polly's answer away like it was a bothersome moth. 

"Oh, I think I see your point," Polly said. 

"What -- what is her point?" Kevin said, looking worried.

"I have a gang now," Polly said. "I can pretty much do whatever I want. I don't need occult magic."

"Do whatever you -- wait. Why would you need occult magic?" Betty said.

"Why _wouldn't_ you?" Cheryl and Nana said in tandem.

Betty stared at the Blossom women.

"Nana has Peruvian blood," Cheryl said, apropos of nothing. 

-

Clifford, it turned out, had recently purchased a large parcel of land on the wrong side of the tracks. Specifically, he had purchased the parcel of land right next to the wrong side of the tracks. There was Wright Street, then the tracks, then Wrong Street, then Clifford's land.

"Wright Street and Wrong Street?" Veronica said. "Okay. Sorry. I hate this town. We should all move to New York."

"I'll never leave my place of birth," Cheryl declared. "There's maple in my veins, Veronica Lodge."

"Cheryl. There's shopping in New York. I'll go with you. We'll share an apartment and have brunch together and make fun of the passerby, like, all the time."

"Okay, you make a convincing argument," Cheryl said. 

FP banged his flask on the pool table.

"Order, junior Serpent!" he told Cheryl. "This is a frame job planning meeting!"

It was. The attendees were: Polly, Cheryl, all the Serpents, Veronica, Betty, Veronica Lake, Jughead, Kevin (who'd protested that he really shouldn't be here, but had still shown up), Nana Blossom, Hermione Lodge, Fred Andrews, and, oddly enough, Archie Andrews.

"Why did nobody tell me that Cheryl and Polly are in a gang now?" Archie demanded.

"Girl, we had no idea you'd even care," said Veronica. "You're like the weirdest combination of loyal and fickle that I've ever met."

"What does that mean?" Archie said.

"It means we never know who you care about from week to week," Veronica said. "Sometimes you're all about Jughead. Then it's Val. Then it's your dad. For a while it was Grundy. It seems like you can only focus on one person at a time, ignoring the needs and feelings everyone else around you if they're not that one person."

"Ronnie, be nice," her mother murmured.

Veronica shrugged.

"Order!" FP said again. "Fred's kid, you were invited because this concerns your dad and his company and Fred said you made a big stink about that and would want to be included. Polly, the floor is yours, and nobody else is going to interrupt you unless they want to be bitten by Veronica Lake."

Polly didn't think Veronica Lake was the kind of snake that bit, but the threat was apparently severe enough to make everyone else go silent. Polly took the floor.

"Here's the problem with Clifford's parcel of land," she said. "It's the land that lies directly between the drive-in land and the good side of town. Now that Clifford knows Fred is going to go ahead and build using his Serpent crew--"

"We're _your_ Serpent crew, Polly," Joaquin whispered. Mustang hear-hear-ed this, so FP cuffed them both for interrupting.

"--Clifford is going to publicly announce tomorrow morning that his land will become the Riverdale fence museum."

Jughead raised his hand. FP, rather than cuffing him, looked pleased at his manners. He nodded to Polly. Polly nodded to Jughead.

"Sorry, what's a fence museum?" Jughead said.

"Good question," Polly said. "It's a row of very tall fences, built very close together, that will effectively block all access to the drive-in land and make building anything on the drive-in land completely superfluous."

"Wow," Jughead said. "It's almost like people should have, I don't know, just a left a drive-in right there."

Nobody disagreed with him.

"The important thing is that we frame Clifford and stop the fence museum," Hermione said now. "So that Clifford goes to jail for killing his son, Cheryl and Polly can go home, the Serpents and I keep our jobs, and Fred can continue construction on SoDale. Right?"

"Right," Polly said. "So here's the plan. At tomorrow's opening ceremony, the Serpents arrive early, tie up Clifford's crew without killing them--"

"What, you think we kill people?" FP said. "We don't. Right, guys?"

The Serpents all nodded unconvincingly.

"--and then take their places. When Clifford gets up to speak, the Serpents begin a protest for the horrible working conditions Clifford subjects them to."

"He treats us like migrant day laborers!" Mustang called out.

"Who are treated very badly and deserve better," said Joaquin.

"I wrote a paper on that once," Betty said thoughtfully. 

"We know," FP said. "Polly made us all read it. Speaking of, let's let Polly finish."

"Thank you," said Polly. "Anyway, the clamor will make Clifford freak out and call his bodyguards away from his car to make the Serpents fall in line. Once the bodyguards are gone, Cheryl and I will sneak into his car and plant Jason's jacket, and then crawl into the trunk."

Betty raised her hand. Polly nodded at her.

"How are you going to get into the trunk?" 

"Oh, I know how to pick the lock on pretty much any luxury vehicle," Veronica said. "Former rich girl here."

"Right," said Polly. "Veronica will pick the locks on the car for us, and then, once we've climbed in, will scream that she can hear people in there. She'll run and get Mr. Andrews and Hermione, who, being good Samaritans, will crowbar us out of the car. That's when you, Betty, and you, Jughead, arrive with cameras to capture our release as part of an expose for the school newspaper.

"Archie, in the meantime, you and Nana will get Sheriff Keller away from the fake labor strike and bring him to the car, where Nana will reveal that Clifford didn't have an alibi for the night of Jason's death. And Kevin? You will do nothing, because you are on the side of law and order and we respect that."

Mustang booed this, but Kevin looked relieved.

-

The day of the frame job dawned crisp and beautiful, and nearly everything went off perfectly. The Serpents arrived early and tied up Clifford's workers, and Polly mind-whammied them with the amulet to make them stay quiet and forget that they'd been tied up or who had done it. While this was happening, all of Riverdale was gathering on Wrong Street to hear Clifford's speech, so it wasn't strange to have accomplices Betty, Veronica, Jughead, Hermione, Archie, Nana, and Fred also show up. Even if Archie arrived with Nana and Fred arrived with a crowbar. But Polly was sure no one would notice that in all the excitement. The Pussycats were performing, and then Mayor McCoy was speaking, and every major news outlet was crowded into the front, even the Coopers' paper, which could be expected to oppose the development of another Blossom property on principle.

"What is Riverdale known for?" Mayor McCoy asked the crowd, as Cheryl and Polly snuck around to the back, where Clifford's car was. "Yes, maple. Yes, disappearing teens and a horrifying recent murder. But there's one thing that can make us forget all that last stuff, and I think we all know what it is. Fences."

"Hi, excuse me," Polly heard her mother call out. " _What_?"

"You heard me, Alice," said Mayor McCoy. "What's more beautiful than fences? Maybe we should put a fence on the town flag."

"They're a metaphor for divisiveness, Sierra," said Polly's mother. "You can't honestly expect this town to replace the blood-soaked maple leaf of the Battle of Riverdale with that."

"Don't be ridiculous. You can put gates in fences," said Mayor McCoy. "And who doesn't love gates?"

Polly was sure her mother would snap something back at the Mayor, because Alice loved nothing if not haranguing public figures, but at this point they were too far away to make it out and also the crowd was swelling to truly epic proportions. 

"I think all one thousand residents might be here!" Polly said. "That means the whole town will see your father exposed."

Cheryl looked as pleased as a cat that had had the chance to murder a particularly innocent bird.

"I'm going to give a dramatic scream when they free us from the car," she declared. 

"That's good," Polly said. "You're very good at dramatic screams."

Behind them, there was a murmur among the crowd as the Mayor finished her speech. Soon Clifford would be getting up to speak. Polly and Cheryl reached the back of the crowd, expecting to see only two or three of Clifford's bodyguards waiting there with the car. 

There were two or three bodyguards. And there was also Clifford. Polly and Cheryl looked at each other uneasily. 

"My fellow Riverdalians," Clifford's voice boomed out over the amplifying system. "What, besides maple, most exemplifies our town? That's right. The white picket fence. So what if we had four hundred and fifty three white picket fences? All laid out in a row. All ninety-nine feet tall."

"I don't understand," Polly hissed. "How is he talking up at the podium, and yet waiting back in the car at the same time?" 

Cheryl didn't answer. She was too busy hyperventilating and saying, "Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no--"

Polly looked out over the trailing edge of the crowd and saw Betty and Jughead standing about twenty feet away, looking as spooked as she felt. She realized that, if this plan was about to go awry, she didn't want Betty in the middle of it.

 _Go,_ Polly mouthed. _I'm calling it off._

Of course, at that point Clifford was interrupted by the angry jeering of the Serpents posing as his workers. As if on cue, the bodyguards standing by the car sprinted away to try and control the labor riot before it turned into a melee and ruined the opening ceremony. Car Clifford stayed right where he was, though. 

_Go_ , Polly mouthed again. She made shooing motions with her hands to get the point across. 

Betty shook her head resolutely. Without warning, she and Jughead made for the car, and Polly watched in panic as Betty knocked on the window and, smiling, said something to Clifford. 

Clifford said something back, nodded, and then got out and walked off with them. 

"No no no no no," Cheryl was still saying. 

"Girl!" said someone behind them. It was Veronica, in a stylish burgundy trench coat and a matching burgundy hat, arriving right on time. "Come on. Let's do this."

"But Clifford--"

"I did not dress up like Carmen Sandiego to _not_ frame Cheryl's dad and remove his evil murdering influence from her life," Veronica said. "Even though this is honestly the most Riverdale thing I've ever done and even I'm ashamed of myself."

Through her gasping panic, Cheryl looked touched. 

"Come on," continued Veronica. "Let's drop Jason's jacket and get this over with."

-

It was easy to bundle up the jacket and stuff it under the driver's seat, and easy to climb into the trunk. It was less easy to get Cheryl in, as she was still freaking out. 

"Okay, I'm not forcing her," Veronica said. "Maybe we can just do it with you, Polly."

"No!" Cheryl said, rallying at the last minute. "No! Now Polly needs me more than ever!"

Only when they were both locked in the darkness of the trunk did Cheryl calm down enough to explain why. 

"That's not my father!" she said. "Or maybe it is, but if it is then the one at the podium is Clifton!"

"Clifton?"

"Father's evil twin! Well. Evil-er."

"You didn't think to mention that your father has an evil twin?" Polly asked, dismayed. 

"Of course not! We all thought he was dead! He was sent to the boys' reformatory at age thirteen for chopping down Nana's favorite maple tree. Then there was a fire four years later and we assumed he died."

Polly wasn't thrilled that there were two Cliffords, but as a former reformatory inmate herself she felt for him. 

"That seems unfair to Clifton," she said. "Just for chopping down a tree?"

"He chopped it down so it would crush Nana's legs as she napped under it," Cheryl said, like this should be obvious. "That's why she's in a wheelchair."

"Oh," Polly said. "Well, maybe it won't be a problem?"

It was. Someone eventually did pry open the trunk to let them out, but it wasn't Fred or Hermione. It was FP, and Clifton Blossom was holding a gun to his head.


	4. Chapter 4

Clifton forced all three of them to march to the Andrews trailer under threat of being shot. FP tried to take the gun from him a few times, but without the element of surprise it was useless. Clifton seemed to have near-superhuman strength and speed.

"As is typical of reform-school imbeciles," Cheryl hissed.

"Okay, that's not true, because Joaquin would be a lot more useful if it was," FP said.

"Why aren't you at the labor riot?" said Polly.

FP said, "Please, if Keller saw me working, he'd know something was up."

"FP," Polly said slowly. "You do work. You go to work right here for Mr. Andrews every day so that the babies and I can have food."

FP stared at her. Then he cursed violently.

"I've gone straight!"

"Don't curse," Polly said. "I didn't arrange to have you baptized into the Catholic church so that you could take up cursing."

"You baptized this ingrate?" sneered Clifton behind her.

Polly ignored him. She'd only invited the Serpents to be baptized, and a significant minority had consented. The rest were either cheerfully godless or culturally Jewish agnostics, which Polly respected, even if learning it had made her feel horrible about her attempts to institute weekly prayer and song. Thankfull,y Mustang, the elected spokesman for the Jewish contingent, had resolved this dilemma by agreeing to co-host cooking classes for everyone instead. 

She hoped that Mustang was safe. She hoped that all the Serpents were safe, and that Clifton hadn't ensnared any more of them. When they made it to the trailer, she swiftly discovered that Clifton hadn't.

He only had Betty, Jughead, Veronica, Hermione, and Fred. Clifton had lured them all to the trailer and tied them up, and now he gestured with the gun for FP to tie Cheryl and Polly. 

"You'll have to kill me first," FP said brazenly.

"Don't be a fool, FP," Fred managed to say, around the length of rope Clifton had used to gag him. 

"Don't tell me what to do," FP said. "I know what you think of me. I'm crazy about you, but you think I'm just a screwup--"

"Okay, if you're crazy about _him_ ," Clifton said, "Then it's him I'm going to shoot first if you don't tie those girls up."

"Sorry, Polly," FP said, giving up. 

"It's okay," Polly said. "I understand."

She held out her hands so that FP could tie them and tried to think her way out of this. She had the amulet, but the amulet didn't work on Clifton. It would work on the others, so she could probably make someone act as a distraction long enough for her to get the gun, but she didn't want to put any of them at risk like that. Clifton had her beloved little sister, her sister's true love, her sister's true love's father, _his_ true love, her _other_ sister, her other sister's true love, and her other sister's true love's mother.

In short, all people Polly would gladly call family. 

"Alright," Clifton told FP, once the girls were trussed up with the others. "Against the wall. I'm going to tie you now, and then I'm going to gag you three, and then I'm going to execute every last one of you and take the amulet."

Unfortunately for him, once he'd finished tying FP, it became clear that he only had enough rope to gag maybe two of the remaining three people.

"This is what happens when you break your mother's heart _and_ her legs," Cheryl said snippily.

"Okay, I'm definitely gagging you," Clifton said. "I've wanted to gag you for years."

While he did this, cursing occasionally because Cheryl kept trying to bite him, his remaining seven captives tried to communicate with their eyes. This should have been difficult, but actually it was fairly easy. Betty, Jughead, Veronica, Hermione, Fred, and FP all seemed to be in agreement. FP should take the hit and get gagged. Polly would be the one best equipped to talk them out of this.

 _Really?_ Polly mouthed behind Clifton's back.

Jughead nodded frantically. FP mouthed, _you're the boss, boss._

"Hey," he said, when Clifton had finished gagging Cheryl and was eyeing Polly. "You're even uglier than your brother, you know that?" 

"We're identical, you reprobate," Clifton said, turning to him and backhanding him so hard he fell over. Clifton stepped over him and began readying the gag.

As he worked, he said, "How else do you think we managed to pass as one man for the past thirty-seven years? How else do you think I managed to always get access to Thornhill, so that I could live in the attic and wander the halls at night, trying to smother the children in their beds?"

Cheryl made a horrified sound. 

"That's right," Clifton said. "It was me. Me, who little Polly pushed down the stairs. Me, the Thornhill ghost! And I would have murdered Cheryl and Jason long ago if it wasn't for mother, with her spells. She has Singaporean blood, so, you see, _she_ knew I wasn't dead. Nothing had happened to my doll, after all."

"Your wha--" FP managed, before he, too, was gagged.

But Polly didn't need an explanation. Well. Not for the doll, anyway.

"Clifton?" she said. "One question, before you kill us. Why?"

Clifton turned to look at her. Madness burned in his eyes.

"Why?" he said. "How can you, of all people, ask me that?"

"Your mother sent you to a reformatory," Polly said slowly. 

"My mother sent me to a reformatory," Clifton said, nodding. "And then my brother broke me out, so that I could live with him and be the one true half of his soul--"

Veronica made a disgusted sound, and for that matter so did everyone else.

"--I'm not ashamed!" Clifton shrieked. "I'm the only person my brother loves, and he's the only one I love. We've always hated Jason and Cheryl, but for a long time neither of them was a real threat. They were weak, mollycoddled by mother. Neither of them was fit to inherit the amulet from Clifford, the amulet Clifford had promised to me, the amulet that signals the _true_ maple heirs. But then Jason met you, Polly Cooper."

Polly swallowed hard.

"Jason became worthy of the amulet," she guessed. "Because he learned how to love."

"What?" Clifton said. "No. Don't be stupid. The amulet doesn't care about love. It's literally an evil cursed amulet. It just liked your babies better than me and Clifford. So I had my gang kidnap Jason and bring him to me, but then he wouldn't tell me where you were, so I couldn't kill you--"

"Wait, you also have your own gang?" Polly said.

"Please," Clifton said. "What are your job options once you leave a reformatory? They don't exist. You have to commandeer a gang. Me, I commandeered three. The Grippers, Golems, _and_ Gremlins; and I would have expanded into Riverdale if the Serpents hadn't stopped me."

FP offered some very satisfied muffling. Clifton backhanded him again. 

"Hey!" Fred managed, again around his gag. "That's not necessary!"

Clifton moved off of FP and went to tighten Fred's gag.

"Yes it is," he informed them all. "I hate that snake and Cheryl and Polly most of all. In fact, I think I'll shoot the rest of you, but you three? You three I will gladly _beat_ to death."

At that moment, Polly and most of the others noticed the crowbar lying innocently by the door. Cheryl gave a frightened yip.

"I'll give you the amulet," Polly said. "You can just have it. I don't even want it. Just set these people free."

"The amulet chooses," Clifton snapped. "And it wouldn't be yours to give away if it didn't. It belongs to your babies. Truly, if I could spare your life and just kill the babies, I'd do that, but--"

"What?" Polly said. "Why? You just said you hated me two seconds ago."

"I know," Clifton said, wrinkling his nose. "But I just remembered my original true love, who you kind of remind me of."

"What?" Polly said.

"Why else would I be an attic-dwelling gangster madman who escaped from a Catholic reformatory?" Clifton said. "Because I lost my first true love. And everyone knows that when that happens, it just leads to criminality, sin, and murder. In this case, yours."

He put down his gun and started for the crowbar.

"Wait!" Polly said. "Who -- who was your first true love? Just out of curiosity."

Clifton scowled. "The one girl in town mother would never let me be with, of course. The daughter of two maple-hating reporters who claimed that our family syrup recipe rotted the teeth. Little Alice Gluetenschnable."

"What?" Polly said.

"Wha--?" Betty managed, around her own gag.

Clifton opened his mouth to answer, but before he could the door behind him pushed open a crack. A familiar manicured hand slid in. The hand picked up the crowbar and cracked him across the head with it.

Clifton Blossom went down. Polly's mother stepped into the trailer and looked at his twitching body.

"That's funny," she said. "Because I don't remember you, like, at all."

Archie and Kevin poked their heads in behind her.

"This is why you should include me!" Archie said. "I'm useful! I went and got Betty's mother!"

"Actually, he got me," Kevin said, stepping inside and moving to undo Veronica's gag. "And I got Betty's mother, who left the site of Clifford Blossom's arrest to come get you guys. Uh, not that I'm involved."

"I didn't say you were useless," Veronica told Archie, once her gag was off. "I was trying to explain that you're myopic and insensitive."

"I am not!" Archie said hotly.

"Where's your girlfriend?" said Veronica.

"Oh, Val?" Archie said. "How should I know? I don't think I've seen her since the baby shower."

-

Clifford was arrested for Jason Blossom's murder, since the jacket was discovered inside his car by Nana and Sheriff Keller. Alice had given up that scoop to rescue her daughters, but she was richly rewarded when she got the scoop on Clifford's evil twin.

Clifton was arrested for murder, racketeering, drug dealing, kidnapping, extortion, torture, arson, car theft, postal theft, bribery of a juror, auto stripping in the second degree, exposure of a person, impairing the integrity of a pari-mutuel betting system, residential mortgage fraud, sports bribe receiving, unpermitted use of pyrotechnics in the second degree, substitution of children, identity theft, jostling, welfare fraud, and speeding.

FP was interviewed on TV at the site of the arrest.

"I'm just a humble construction foreman who loves his kids," he said. "And all those crimes were definitely committed by the Grippers, Golems, and Gremlins. Not -- not other people. I'd swear that to anybody. I'd swear that to my kid if he asked me."

"He won't," Jughead said, sighing.

-

Nobody ever did build a fence museum, but in the weeks that followed, the town learned that at least Sheriff Keller was not as corrupt as they'd thought, and that in fact he was relieved to put his old boss away. 

For the next few years, the Sheriff could often be seen around town, muttering, "Four hundred and fifty three white picket fences at ninety-nine feet tall. At ninety-nine feet tall! And he wanted to put that on my patrol beat. Screw him."

Still, his father's improved public image in turn relieved Kevin, who loosened up enough to agree to take a two-week sexy vacation to a farm with Joaquin if Joaquin would only give up Catholicism and go for his GED. Joaquin accepted these terms, and after getting his GED went to college, and after college became a passionate community organizer who successfully campaigned for the closing of all the area reformatories. 

Archie went online and discovered that Val had broken up with him on Facebook.

Hermione continued her secret plan to manipulate both Fred and Hiram into building a multi-billion dollar complex to revitalize South Riverdale, so that she could someday divorce Hiram and still get millions in alimony and child support. No one would discover the plan for another two years, but it would be successful and Hermione would end up the richest person in Riverdale.

Mayor McCoy did push through the initiative to put a white picket fence (with a gate) on the town flag.

FP and most of the Serpents went mostly-straight, working construction by day and drinking hard by night, until Fred put his foot down and made FP enroll in a day treatment program. FP complained about it endlessly, but did it for Fred and his kids, who he claimed to genuinely love despite the occasional evidence to the contrary. 

Polly was just glad that he was in recovery, since secretly she liked FP best of all.

Happily, she frequently met him and many of the other Serpents at weekly mass, all except for Joaquin, who she saw often at social functions, and except for Mustang and the Jewish contingent. These Serpents were always there to welcome Polly at Thornhill.

This was because Cheryl soon moved back home. She took Veronica Lake with her and hired twenty of the thirty-seven Serpents to tend the grounds and manor. Really she'd wanted Mustang, who was both an excellent cook and had become like a brother to her. When Cheryl's mother balked at hiring someone who needed all of the Jewish holidays off, Cheryl pitched a dramatic screaming fit and shook Penelope until she agreed. Nana watched on indulgently. 

Veronica, despite herself, asked Cheryl out not long after that. She realized that if she was willing to embroil herself in a madcap Riverdale plot for a girl, then that was usually the first sign that she wanted to date that girl, and since Veronica was a Lodge, she usually went for what she wanted.

Betty and Jughead kept on dating and never once went to a farm, which was good because Jughead's father opposed farming on principle, as it required a great deal of work and paid very little. Jughead decided to never reveal to his father just how much the average writer made. He and Betty were very happy together, and Betty eventually started smiling as much as she used to, which relieved Polly.

"Why did you approach Clifton after I asked you to just give up the plan?" Polly asked her, a few weeks after the senior Blossom twins' arrest.

"Polly," Betty said. "Come on. You looked so spooked. It's my job to make sure you never look like that for long."

Betty did eventually become godmother to one of the babies (Jason Jr.), and Cheryl the godmother to the other (Serpent Alice-Nana). 

No one ever tried to dictate the babies' gender or professional destiny to them, which Polly thought was nice. No one ever told the babies what to do, period, because the babies inherited a maple fortune, an all-powerful cursed amulet, and a small dash of that old Blossom sociopathy. 

Clifford and Clifton both went to Old Sparky. Penelope took up the art of maple-pruning. Alice divorced Hal and changed her name back to Gluetenschnable. The Blossom-Cooper-Gluetenschnable family more or less got along, especially after Polly finally moved back home. She couldn't really hate her mother after her mother had given up a chance to harangue a handcuffed Clifford Blossom in order to brain Jason's murderer with a crowbar.

Besides this, Alice was a big support when it came to arguing for new family traditions, ones that didn't involve coffins or creepy dolls. 

"See, instead of breeding ever-larger carnivorous plants," Alice explained to a stupefied Cheryl, Penelope, and Nana one day, "you could all volunteer at the soup kitchen with Betty when Betty goes on Thursdays."

"She goes every Thursday to see the _poor_?" said Penelope.

"Nana's allergic to the poor," Cheryl put in. "She can't help it. She has the blood of Sealand."

And Nana continued to have gypsy, Chippewa, swami, Midwestern, Nepalese, Australian, Polish-Canadian, Swedish, Peruvian, Singaporean, and Sealand blood. 

Sometimes Polly considered asking her where she kept that blood, but then Polly would think, "You know what? Better not."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was going to make Alice a Klump again but a quick google search for minor Archie comics characters unearthed an Ophelia Gluetenschnable. And when the universe gives you a name like Gluetenschnable, you have to use it.
> 
> Also, did Archie storm into the baby shower, yell at Jughead, and storm out without saying a word to Val? Or did I make that up? LMK. I honestly can't remember.


End file.
